


The Way You Look Tonight

by ossapher



Series: The Macaroniverse -- Lams Modern AU [9]
Category: American Revolution RPF
Genre: Haircuts, M/M, Pining, Uniform Kink, kind of?, talking about art
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-23
Updated: 2016-04-23
Packaged: 2018-06-03 22:20:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6628915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ossapher/pseuds/ossapher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Hercules Mulligan returns from travels abroad determined to redecorate Alex's apartment and ends up giving his roommate an expository hairstyle change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Way You Look Tonight

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much to [scioscribe](http://archiveofourown.org/users/scioscribe/pseuds/scioscribe) for letting me borrow some ideas on Hercules Mulligan, and again for reading this over and shooing it into the world.
> 
> Also, for the purposes of this fic, Hercules Mulligan is played by Okieriete Onaodowan.
> 
> I am not is/r/a/a and did not know her. She has deleted her ao3. I have never represented myself as having any medical conditions I do not have. I have never solicited donations based on my work.

“ALEX!” Herc sweeps him up in a bear hug pretty much the instant he opens the door, dropping half his luggage in the process. Alex bursts out laughing as his feet leave the floor.

“Good to see you, man,” he grins. Herc sets him back down, and Alex kneels to pick up whatever Herc’s dropped. He doesn’t even ask how the flight was. All flights are excellent to Herc. “You brought… avocados?”

“Yeah, man! I had this fourteen hour layover in LAX so I figured, hey, might as well have a look around, pick up some avocados for my poor, deprived friend who always complains about how inadequate east coast produce is…”

“That was _one time_ and the guac was _brown_.” Alex grins from ear to ear.

“That was three times about avocados alone. Once at the taco stand on 51st and twice at the dining hall. I won’t go into all the non-avocado examples, but they are extensive. In short, you’re welcome, Alex. Oh, and I brought something for your wall.”

“No!” Alex cries. “Herc, you know I don’t like presents—”

“Well, consider this a favor, then. One you can repay someday.”

“How much did you pay for it?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“I did the artist a favor.”

“What kind of favor?”

“Tickets to the premiere of a horror movie called _Miburui_ , which happened to star her favorite actress _._ ”

Alex halts, distracted from his quest to figure out how much he owes Herc. “How’d you get those?”

“I was an extra in it.”

“You were an extra in a Japanese horror movie?”

“It’s a long story. I’m gonna need beer.”

“I have that,” Alex grins. God, he’s missed Herc, with his wild international adventures and the way he tells his stories backwards. His Fulbright had kept him out of the country for a whole year, and he’d just kept traveling after that. Alex had gotten used to receiving postcards from places he’d never heard of. “So, what’s this wall… thing?”

“It’s a print,” says Herc, picking up his duffel bag and a long poster tube and stepping inside. “When I picked it out I was thinking about the conversation we had in your sophomore year about the conflict you were feeling between the need to reform structures of power and the need to dismantle them, especially in the context of American political institutions… so I hope you like red, white, and blue.”

“It’ll match our current color scheme,” Alex says, leading Herc down the narrow front hall and into what he and John call the Big Room because it’s the only one that could fit the couch. Hanging directly above the couch is John’s eight-foot American flag.

“Huh,” Herc says, blinking at it.

“It’s my roommate’s,” Alex says quickly. “He’s in class right now.”

Herc gives him a look that demands more explanation.

“His dad is Senator Henry Laurens.”

“So he’s a rabid, theocratic nationalist who calls himself a patriot,” Herc says with distaste.

Alex shakes his head vehemently. “I think for him it’s, uh… a reminder-slash-warning against moral hypocrisy.”

Herc looks intrigued, as Alex knew he would be. Herc loves symbols and signs, how they mean different things to different people. He revels in ambiguity. “A coded message only intended for himself.” He looks slyly at Alex. “Except you know the code.”

Alex is gonna be in deep shit if Herc pries too much further; the guy’s way too perceptive and knows Alex too well to miss his giant crush, and Alex really doesn’t want to have to explain why he’s not going after it, because he knows exactly what would happen. Herc would try to sternly lecture Alex into believing that he deserves romantic and sexual fulfillment regardless of being H.I.V. positive and Alex would have to defend the position that what he may or may not _deserve_ and what he can _get_ and what he feels _comfortable getting_ are three very different things, and that’s a really demoralizing position to defend, and anyway, he _likes_ the way things are right now, he really does, he likes being John’s friend, he’s really happy that John’s got something he’s really fucking passionate about, and Alex is just gonna have to cope with the fact that a passionate John is an unfairly hot John, because John has enough on his plate working his way up from a serious depressed period, and does not need the additional stress of his roommate, his H.I.V.-positive roommate, basically demanding to leave the friendzone, and this whole concept of the friendzone needs to go die in a fire anyway. There is no zone. He and John are good friends and Alex is _fine with that_.

Alex blinks. Herc’s in the process of hanging up the print on the wall opposite the couch. Unrolled, it fills almost the whole wall, angry saturated blue and blood red battling for space, wavering between order and chaos. What little white remains looks almost accidental.

“Wow,” Alex says. “That’s some art right there.”

“You were doing the thing you do sometimes where you drop out of the universe,” Herc says. “I hope you don’t mind. I wanted to see how it would look.” He considers each wall in turn. “The reds and the blues don’t exactly match, but I always thought color-matching was a little fascist.”

Alex looks back and forth between his new print and John’s faded old flag, facing each other across the room. “Actually, Herc,” he says, “I think they match just fine.”  

***

Herc is in the middle of his third beer and an outrageous story about a Jeep breakdown/ capybara encounter that Alex is half sure he’s making up on the spot when John finally gets home from class. John’s got something heavy and covered in black plastic draped over his arm, a couple hangers visible poking out the top.

“Hey, John!” Alex sets down his beer and waves. “This is my old RA, Herc. Herc, this is John.”

John shifts his burden to his other arm and shakes Herc’s hand. “You’re the one who’s always going places?” he asks, and Herc laughs.

“I see Alex told you about me,” he says. John’s staring at the new print, and Herc says, “We redecorated a little.”

“I love it,” John says, walking over to give it a closer inspection. “The composition is so—”

Alex doesn’t really understand the conversation that ensues; all he really knows about art is how it makes him feel and what it makes him think. The mechanics and technical terms elude him. Furthermore, he’d had no idea that John was so into it—he’s seen the guy’s lecture notes and he’s a prolific doodler, but he hadn’t realized the true extent of his art nerdery. Maybe he should drag him along to the Smithsonian someday, get some culture so he can hang with all the elitists he’s going to have to impress if he’s going to be a successful lawyer. Maybe he should drag John _and_ Herc along to the Smithsonian. Maybe that’s what they should do tomorrow...

When he rejoins the universe—in Herc’s words—Herc has turned the conversation to the clothes in John’s hands, as Alex had known was inevitable the moment John walked in the door. Clothes are Herc’s other major interest, besides symbols— actually, Herc’s interested in the idea of clothes _as_ symbols, and the messages they broadcast to the world and to the person wearing them. Alex knows this because he proofread the guy’s senior thesis (copy editing not being among Herc’s many strengths), but to John it’s probably just going to seem… weird.

“Are those new, or did you just get them dry cleaned?” Herc asks.

“New uniforms,” John says, a trace of pride in his voice. “I start work as an EMT next week.”

“Try them on, try them on!” Herc demands. “The clothes make the man, I always say.”

John’s face reddens slightly at that, and Alex has a pretty good guess why. It’s something John’s dad would say. Not that Alex has met John’s dad, but… well. After all his conversations with John about the guy, he feels like he knows him pretty well.  

“Herc studies fashion design,” Alex explains. “He’s interested in how people’s clothes affect their state of mind. You know, the way they categorize themselves in relation to others. That’s what he means when he says that clothes make the man.” Herc always says that looking the part is 80% of the battle; the adage seems to have served him well in life, even though it makes Alex a little depressed if he thinks about it too hard.

John still looks skeptical, but he retreats into his room and comes out a moment later and _oh, wow_ , EMT uniforms aren’t supposed to look _good,_ seriously, it’s a short-sleeved navy button down with navy pants, _what the fuck is happening to his brain right now?_

“Navy suits you,” Herc pronounces. “But we’ve got to do something about your hair.”

“Yeah…” John shakes his bangs out of his eyes. “I haven’t really bothered to do anything with it for like, months.”

“I can tell. What, were you growing it out for something?”

“Uh… not really.” John’s looking embarrassed, and Alex knows it’s because the honest answer would be _I spent several months feeling too empty to function and haircuts were not a priority_. “Alex, what do you think?”

For a while there Alex was used to seeing John in a t-shirt, sweatpants, and a week’s worth of stubble, ghosting in and out of the kitchen at random hours. He’d tried to put in a little more work when he was going to his EMT training, but sometimes, especially at the beginning, he just hadn’t had the energy. This uniform is the most dressed up—if “dressed up” is the right word to use for clothes that seem to have been designed with durability and number of pockets the number one concern and everything else a distant second—Alex has seen John since the end of last fall semester. And yet, weirdly, “dressed up” _does_  seem to be the right word. Now that John’s gotten over his initial self-consciousness at Herc’s scrutiny, he’s holding himself differently. More upright. Not stiff, though—there’s something a little arrogant, a little cocky about it and frankly it’s hot and _fuck_ , _fuck, fuck!_

Herc elbows him in the side, and if Alex were a Looney Tune he’d be rolling his tongue back into his mouth right now. Right. John asked him what he thought. “Looks good, John,” he croaks.

“Yes, Alex,” Herc says with mock forbearance. “What about his hair?”

“Oh! Uh. Cut it. Yeah.” Herc rolls his eyes, and in revenge, Alex says, “Herc always used to do mine for me, in college. He’s pretty good at it.”

“Oh, no, I couldn’t ask you to—” John begins, hands up, but Herc’s wearing a sly smile, and Alex considers that maybe this is about to backfire on him, although he doesn’t quite know how yet.

“It’s no trouble at all,” Herc says.

John wavers just a moment before making up his mind. “Fuck it, let’s do this!”

So they all troop into the bathroom, and John wets his hair in the sink and sits in the fold-up kitchen chair that Alex brings in. He eyes the scissors in Herc’s hands.

“Any preference on the style?” Herc asks innocently.

John shrugs. “Something that won’t get in my eyes? And looks cool, maybe?”

“Something that looks cool,” Herc repeats, as though mulling it over. “Alex, what do you think?”

“I— I don’t think about hair that much,” Alex says, because he thinks he’s figured out why Herc’s smiling, and he doesn’t like it one bit.

“Hmm. News to me,” Herc says, and Alex is so fucked, because he _has_ figured out Herc’s plan.

“Alex, you can’t be serious,” John says. “You’re the guy who walks around looking like a L’Oreal commercial all day.”

“My hair is naturally silky,” Alex grouses.

“Right. And it naturally smells like grapefruit and vanilla.”

Herc cracks up. “Okay, keep your head still. I don’t wanna take any ears off. Actually.” He withdraws the scissors. “I don’t wanna get little hairs all over your new uniform. They take ages to get out.”

“Right,” says John, already reaching for the buttons. He tosses the shirt out into the bedroom.

Herc smirks straight at Alex, who stares defiantly back from his perch on the edge of the bathtub. He and John share a bathroom, for fuck’s sake. It’s not like he hasn’t seen the guy without a shirt on before. He makes a point not to stare at John—John, who used to be a competitive swimmer, who has been working out ever since he realized he wanted to be an EMT and that was going to imply heavy lifting, who has _really nicely-defined back muscles, fuck!_

“Actually, would you mind turning around?” Herc asks. “I can get a better angle this way.”

John does as Herc asks, except he doesn’t turn the chair around, just straddles it and crosses his arms on the backrest, only a foot away from Alex on the edge of the tub. Alex wishes Herc a fiery death, but now he can’t glare without John seeing. He seethes, and tries to look like he isn’t seething.

Herc talks as he works, asking John a few questions about his personal life, which John answers vaguely and uncomfortably. Herc seems to want to pry—Alex has seen him pry before, and it was like taking a masterclass in prying. Alex shoots him a warning look. He doesn’t know why Herc’s being so pushy; he’d thought that he and John were getting along. Still, when John tries to change the subject, asking if Herc’s ever cut hair before, Herc acquiesces, telling about how he paid for his trip across Europe by giving haircuts to backpackers in hostels along the way. This serves as a neat segway into all Herc’s other international travels and odd jobs: the time he washed dishes in Milan for a month because he wanted to see the fashion shows, the time he memorized the Seoul metro map and gave personal guided tours to rich tourists, the time he worked as a bouncer in Moscow at a club called U!S!A! that served all its drinks in red Solo cups, the time he couchsurfed across all of South America just to see what he could see.

More and more of John’s hair falls to the floor, but Herc’s in no hurry.

If Alex didn’t know any better, he’d say Herc is teasing him. They used to grab lunch together at the dining hall almost every day, and during the inevitable people-watching sessions that ensued they’d gotten on the subject of men’s haircuts. Alex had said, _you know the one where the sides are all short, but the middle’s longer? Because that one murders me every time_ , and Herc had laughed at him both for liking mohawks and for not knowing what they were called, and Alex had said, _I know what a fucking mohawk looks like, and no, it’s not a mohawk, it’s better and anyway the back is short too_ and Herc had laughed again, and now Herc’s goddamn perfect conversational recall is coming back to bite Alex in the ass, because that very haircut is now taking shape on John’s head.

A little buzz with the electric razor, and it’s done. John stands and checks out his reflection in the mirror. “Nice!” he says, more surprised, perhaps, than Herc would appreciate. “Thanks, Herc.” He turns back to Alex. “What do you think?”

It’s like Alex is shuffling through a bunch of mental cue cards that all have really inappropriate things written on them, and he blurts out the first thing that doesn’t seem like a come-on. “I can see the back of your neck now.”

“... thanks?”

“No, it looks good! The haircut. And the back of your neck. Everything looks great, John, you’re a fucking vision.” He couldn’t stop babbling if he tried. “This is really happening, John. You really did it, you’re gonna be a hero. You’re gonna save a lot of people’s lives.”

John sweeps clumps of hair off his bare shoulders, a pleased flush coming to his cheeks. Herc retrieves the uniform shirt from the floor, and John shrugs it back on. “Alex, I was going to do that before I got the haircut.”

“I know,” Alex says, gently brushing off some hair he missed. He goes to fetch a broom so John can sweep the clippings off the floor, and just as he’s leaving he catches a glimpse of John looking back in the mirror, smiling like a man who finally looks the part he wants to play.

 


End file.
